Ceramics and glass business news of the week

Launched earlier this year to “develop the next generation of ceramics and ceramic composites to operate in extreme conditions ,” the UK’s Materials Systems for Extreme Environments consortium will focus on processing of ternary carbides, fabrication of ceramic composites by microwave chemical vapor infiltration, and development of flash sintering and extended spark plasma sintering techniques. Funded by a £4.2 million grant from the Engineering And Physical Sciences Research Council—the UK equivalent of the US National Science Foundation—XMAT consists of research groups at Loughborough University, Imperial College London, and Queen Mary University. The project will also work to develop hierarchical and predictive modeling capability for simulating experiments that are extremely difficult and expensive.

Corning Inc. is entering into a series of strategic and financial agreements with Samsung Display Co. Ltd., intended to strengthen product and technology collaborations between the two companies. Expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, the transactions will result in Corning obtaining full ownership of Samsung Corning Precision Materials Co. Ltd., a Korea-based joint LCD glass manufacturing venture currently minority-owned by Samsung. Once that deal is complete, Samsung Display will purchase new convertible preferred shares of Corning worth $1.9 billion. After additional transactions, Samsung Display’s combined investment in Corning would result in approximately 7.4% ownership on an as-converted basis. Other provisions of the deal include a new long-term LCD display glass supply agreement between Corning and Samsung Display through 2023 and strengthening of the companies’ technology collaborations on strategic product development and commercialization initiatives. Corning’s board of directors also authorized an additional $2 billion of share repurchases through Dec. 31, 2015, dependent upon the transaction closing.

American Graphite Technologies Inc. has finalized the intellectual property agreement for its 3D Project P-600 with the National Science Centre of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The project will research the properties of Nano carbon contained matter (graphene) as a working material for 3D printing. A team of 10 scientists will work with experts from the fields of nanotechnology, 3D printing, solid state physics, physical materials, and thermal physics. “The prospective scope of research, as we think, is thin films and extremely small-scale objects with nano- and micrometer dimensions. Thus, we plan to pay especially attention to the research with creating the graphene objects into nano- and micrometer typical size,” an abstract received by the company says. American Graphite Technologies will fund the one-year project and will hold rights to all intellectual property developed from it.

The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has a new website where users can find a collection of reports and studies on manufacturing policy and practice. Intended as a resource for the manufacturing community and to fuel discussion about manufacturing’s future in the US, the site offers reports and research organized by topic area. Topics include the current state of US manufacturing; innovation, R&D, and IP; capital and costs; global competitiveness; best practices; productivity; sustainability; and more. The site is soliciting suggestions for worthwhile reports that may have been overlooked, which may be sent as a link or attachment along with a brief description to gyakimov@nist.gov.

Owens Corning recently reported consolidated net sales of $1.32 billion in the third quarter of 2013, compared with $1.28 billion during the same period last year. Third-quarter 2013 adjusted earnings were $63 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, compared with $40 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, during the same period one year ago. The report reflected improved year-on-year performance in each of the company’s businesses, including a ninth consecutive quarter of earnings improvement for O-C’s fiberglass insulation unit. According to the report, adjusted earnings before interest and taxes in the third quarter totaled $119 million, up from $81 million in the same period of 2012. The company expects full-year adjusted EBIT 2013 to increase by at least $100 million over 2012.